Publisher: City College of San Francisco, Center for Habitat RestorationReporter: Philip Batchelder

San Bruno Mountain - Big Island in a Big CitySan Bruno Mountain hides in plain sight between San Franciscoand South San Francisco. As the nation's largesturban open space, and as the largest remaining portion ofthe Franciscan ecosystem, the mountain is large and wildenough to harbor hundreds of species of flora and fauna,some of which live nowhere else. Ohlone village sites,rare native bunchgrass meadows, extraordinary wildflowerdisplays, and deep canyons with a variety of plant communities,including oak, bay, and buckeye woodlands; all thiscan be found on the mountain in the midst of millions ofpeople. These treasures have faced numerous threats since Spaniards first drove out the Ohlone and began pasturingcattle. The privately owned portions still face outrightdestruction for development, while the State andCounty Park suffers from fire suppression, the absence ofgrazing deer and elk, exotic weeds, inadequate funding,and mismanagement. The mountain's ecosystem, while stillbreathtakingly beautiful, is under tremendous strain, andits advocates are as busy as ever.

Defending the MountainThe modern movement to protect the mountain began inthe late sixties as landowners proposed ever more ambitiousbuilding schemes. Bette Higgins, David Schooley, andothers began organizing the Committee to Save San BrunoMountain, which would later become San Bruno MountainWatch. Other early defenders included botanists ElizabethMcClintock and James Roof as well as countless local citizenswho participated in policy debates, elections, lawsuits,marches, media activism, and direct action to curburban sprawl. The discovery of the rare Mission Blue, SanBruno Elfin, and San Francisco Silverspot butterflies andtheir subsequent listings under the Federal EndangeredSpecies Act were watershed events that dramatically alteredthe course of the mountain's history.Over the years, there have been recalls of local electedofficials, lawsuits against agencies charged with enforcingenvironmental laws, rancorous public meetings, and astream of development projects. There have been spectacularvictories, such as the establishment of the Stateand County Park, the preservation of Owl and BuckeyeCanyons, and the recent purchase of an ancient Ohloneshellmound and village site for addition to the park. Therehave also been heartbreaking defeats, such as the destructionof Paradise Valley in South San Francisco and the constructionof Guadalupe Valley Parkway through the heartof the mountain's wild space. The Parkway effectively destroyedmuch of Colma Creek; as a barrier that butterflies are unlikely to cross, the road also severely fragmented thebutterflies' habitat, thus reducing the flow of genes that factorsso importantly in their long term chances of evolution and survival.

Habitat Conservation or Profit Conservation?Perhaps the longest running battle concerns the so-called HabitatConservation Plan (HCP), a loophole in the Federal EndangeredSpecies Act (ESA) that allows for limited destruction ofrare species and their habitats in exchange for demonstrablyinsufficient efforts to "create" substitute habitats and tocontrol weeds. David Schooley vehemently opposed thePlan from the start and, with the rest of Mountain Watchand with allies in the California Native Plant Society and theSan Mateo County-sponsored Friends of San Bruno Mountain,is now at the center of a legal and policy battle over thetenuous future of the HCP.

Had the Plan been developed in accord with the spirit and intent of theEndangered Species Act: to enable the recovery and ongoingsurvival of species facing extinction, San Bruno Mountain andits rare species would likely be in much better shape today. Instead,the HCP facilitated development, and 23 years later, Federal, State, andmunicipal agencies are trying to untangle a knot of conflicting priorities.Developers want to build, environmentalists demand sweeping improvements,regional governments wrestle with the pressures of urban sprawl, andnew weeks threaten to overtake the mountian. Since the HCP's fundingis capped to guarantee builders that they won't ever have to pay morethan originally agreed, the solution being offered to the public is toallow further destruction in order to get more money to pour into a Planthat doesn't work.

Why doesn't the HCP work? The idea that a rare or endangered speciescan be relocated is scientifically unfounded. Rare species are often rarebecause their habitat requirements are specific. The habitat is defined bya number of factors: soil type, hydrology, wind, fog, temperature, light, slope,and the array of flora and fauna interacting in the area. Therefore, creatingnew habitat for a sensitive species would be very difficult, very expensive,and still might not work. for many rare species the complexities of feeding,reproduction, predation, disease and other aspects of its life history are onlypoorly understood. Also, the contractor hired to create habitat will need todo extensive research prior to initiating the project and developing andperforming monitoring. Finally, it seems that new habitat should be developedand species monitored in the area prior to destroying habitat elsewhere.These vital steps were not undertaken for the San Bruno Mt. HCP.

If nothing else, the firm that has been retained to carryout the provisions of the HCP, Thomas Reid Associates(TRA) has got to go. TRA has had conflicts of interestfrom the start. They helped craft the initial Plan, conductedthe official environmental impact review, won bidsto start the work after the Plan was approved, and havehad the contract renewed several times despite a verypoor level of performance. Every year they produce astatus report that cannot be taken seriously because ofthe firm's vested interest in making the picture look rosy.We have had to wait for over 20 years for scientific peerreview of TRA's practices to be conducted. Even thoughthe two reports that were finally produced focused solelyon TRA's butterfly monitoring, the results are powerfulindictments because so much of the Plan rests on TRA'spurported ability to track the fluctuations in butterflypopulations. The peer reviews concluded that the monitoringdata is largely useless due to poor monitoring designand implementation. In fact, the first report said thatthe ONLY conclusion that one can reasonably draw fromthe data is that the species merely exist. To make mattersworse, almost all of the developers around the mountainhave used, in keeping with the protocol of the HCP, TRA'sdata to underpin assertions about their projects' biologicalimpacts. It's time to hire a new environmental consultingfirm that will address the situation objectively and designmonitoring regimes that will be peer-reviewed from the start.

Adopted in 1982, the San Bruno Mountain HCP was thevery first of its kind; it has served as a precedent for overone thousand other HCPs that are in place or under de-velopment nationwide. The results of the current legalstruggle could have national significance, especially giventhe current wrangling over the Endangered Species Act(ESA) itself. The ESA has proven to be one of the nation'smost enduring environmental laws, having survived numer-ous attacks by powerful developers and by mining andlogging interests and their government allies. The US Fish& Wildlife Service, under political pressure to weakenspecies protections while under legal pressure to upholdresource laws like the Endangered Species Act, is deeplydivided. While many Service staff are earnestly trying toimplement science-based land management, the Bush Ad-ministration has appointed Matthew Hogan, the formerchief lobbyist for the Safari Club (an extreme trophy hunt-ing group), to head the agency, and several bills that couldgut the ESA altogether are heading toward votes in con-gress. Allowing further destruction of severely imperiledspecies on San Bruno Mountain would strike a substantialblow to the Act. Conversely, Mountain Watch supportsall efforts to strengthen the ESA to gain stronger protec-tions for San Bruno Mountain and for other natural treas-ures.

Love the Mountain, and Fight for ItFundamental to San Bruno Mountain Watch's strugglesare a variety of volunteer efforts, educational slideshows,collaborations with local agencies and officials, guidedhikes, weed pulling parties, and other celebrations of themountain's intricate beauty. We attempt to address themountain's broad range of conservation needs along withthe public's need for education, recreation, and inspiration.We're currently focused on:� Educating people of all ages about their local environ-ment, and the need to actively appreciate and protectit. We offer slideshows, guided hikes, and supervisedservice learning.� Stopping further development in the Brisbane Quarry;which has gouged into the heart of the Mountain foralmost 100 years, destroying vast rare species habitatalong the way.� Preserving the privately-owned Brisbane Acres, whichcomprise the mountain's most intact unprotectedhabitat.� Preventing the issuance of a permit to kill the severelyimperiled San Francisco Silverspot butterflyunder proposed changes to the HCP.� Raising the level of professional land management bysecuring grants.� Hiring skilled, knowledgeable, and dedicated weedingcrews.� Upholding Federal and State clean water laws bysuing the Amloc dump in Colma for water pollutionviolations.� Enhancing our substantial historical archives andexpanding activities in our Mountain Learning Centerin Brisbane.� Organizing volunteer weeding parties.

The mountain is an irreplaceable part of our human habitat,it must be defended tenaciously; it should also beenjoyed as the marvelous wild spectacle that it is. Opportunitiesabound for people of all ages and interests toprotect and enjoy San Bruno Mountain. Strange andnever-ending as it may seem, weeding the mountain maybe the most popular activity. Besides rekindling what isfor many a long lost, visceral interaction with the land,it's a fantastic way to learn about plants, land management,and politics, to promote species diversity, to getsome exercise, to help care for our shared park resources,and to work joyfully with others. Please join us.

For More Information and To Get Involved:Contact San Bruno Mountain Watch,Brisbane, CA 94005. Fax / tel 415-467-6631.Email: mountainwatch@earthlink.net.Website: www.mountainwatch.org